There's only one story to cover today

There is only one story to tell today, and that is "The Voice." America will be able to weigh in and vote on the final 12 for the NBC singing competition show.

Just kidding.

There is only one story that each network and local news outlet will be providing team coverage on, and it started this morning.

It's the presidential election. Sure, there are a number of local and state-wide elections; however, all of them will pale in comparison to the race for the White House and the more than $4 billion spent to get the word out on which candidate to vote for.

We can only hope that come this time tomorrow the election will be over. At the very least, we can count on the political advertisements bombarding our TV, radios, telephones and mailboxes to stop. If the race is too close to call, it may linger on for a while. Let's just hope we done have to deal with "hanging chads."

The most TV advertising spending took place in Florida, however the market with the most spots that ran was in Green Bay. It is the little tidbits like these that can frame an election on a local and national stage.

There are some parts of this election that are similar to those of the past, and there are a number of things that are not the same.

"What's different is that it is so darn close," said Rich Edson, a political reporter with the Fox Business Network. "It's incredibly close and will come down to the wire."

While working for a business news outlet, Edson has the opportunity to cover politics from an economic point of view.

"This election will decide the fiscal future for the U.S.," Edson said, pointing to the vastly different plans Barack Obama and Mitt Romney have to create a sustainable economy.

Edson has been traveling the country this year, monitoring how well or ineffectively certain platform points were faring among the electorate. He was here in Wisconsin for the recall election, and tonight he'll be in Chicago.

"We will be watching the voter enthusiasm, in the polling they may be assuming 2008 turnout. But, we won't really know until election night," he said.

Locally, our area news outlets will be trying to gauge numbers early, looking at the wait before the polls open in the morning. They may look to early election numbers to guess how the election is going. One thing is certain however – we can count on the local and national outlets to dissect the turnout as the day progresses.

SOCIALLY SPEAKING: Time Warner Cable announced earlier this month it launched an application to help users access multiple social media platforms and instant messaging services from their desktop in what it calls "an innovative and easy-to-follow layout."

The application is available as a PC desktop application, Mac OS application and Firefox add-on. Called "Social One," the app can be downloaded at rr.com/socialone.

Talkbacks

It's so nice to record shows so that you can fast forward through all the terrible (both sides) ads that have been driving most of us crazy. The amount spent (by both sides) is obscene. Both the Republicans and Democrats should be ashamed...I voted early, but I'm very disappointed about the way this election was held.

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